


Patient 0

by deathofaraven



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Batman: Arkham (Video Games)
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Psychological Torture, Psychological Trauma, Stalking, Suspense, could be longer if the reviewers wish, possibly one shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-21
Updated: 2016-08-21
Packaged: 2018-08-10 02:36:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7826995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathofaraven/pseuds/deathofaraven
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Patient zero: the primary case, the start of an outbreak. "So you're locked in a coffin with a mad man outside; what do you do?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Patient 0

The darkness was overwhelming, pressing against her straining eyes with the force of a fist. Her heavy, panicked breaths comingled with the racing of her pulse in her ears in an unsteady rush. She'd never truly been afraid of the dark itself before, but this was something different—something horrible: she was in a box. Her feet shuffled and clunked against what she assumed was the bottom of the box, but she was so disoriented. She didn't know which way was up. _Stop. Try to relax. If you don't…you might run out of oxygen_. Panting, she tried to slow her breathing and focus. If she could concentrate, maybe she could get out. She twisted slightly, feeling the sharp ache and tug of the muscles in her wrists and forearms as she forced her arms, one after the other, up until they were level with her chest. Gave the wall of the box a sharp push, followed by as strong of a blow as she could manage. And still there were no signs of any life outside the box. Had she been buried alive? The thought sent her heart racing harder than ever. Panic and fear overrode the logical aspects of her brain and she struggled, kicking and hitting the barrier before her with all the strength she could manage. It wasn't enough and a particularly violent bit of thrashing sent her already damaged skull colliding against the side of the box; pain blossomed and burned through her nerves. She was unconscious within seconds.

\---

Things never seemed to go well for her in Gotham; though she hadn't lived within the city since she was a child—the rising crime levels had caused her parents to move them from Gotham to Star City and then on to Jump City—Gotham was still home. Therefore, it had been an obvious choice for her to return to the city for school once her parents had begun pressuring her into choosing a college. Naturally, they hadn't been pleased by her selection, but she had been cautiously optimistic and so forgot the cardinal rule of living in Gotham: expect the worst.

It started with little things. Her alarm clock had died in the middle of the night, just before an exam, and she'd woken up late for class. Someone had smashed in the windows of her car and, though nothing was stolen (which was miraculous, especially for Gotham), it had cost an entire month's worth of pay to repair it. Shortly after the car incident, her boss decided he no longer required half of the staff working under him and started firing anyone he deemed "unnecessary"…which had included her. If she had thought she was safe from her run of bad luck at school, she was wrong; her shame had reached a crescendo after the library incident. What had started as an innocent quest to retrieve a box of textbooks for one of her professors had ended with her and a stranger sprawled on the ground with their respective tomes littering the cement around them—in the end, she'd been so mortified that she'd hastily shoved the books back into the box with barely more than a word of apology and only enough of a glance in the stranger's direction to see that he was very tall and had very _blue_ eyes. She had been suddenly grateful that she'd yet to make any enemies and so no one would bother trying to make a big deal out of it.

She'd hoped her streak would run out after that. That her bad luck was just minor storm that had blown itself out. She had almost convinced herself that it was true, too…

…and then the eyes had started following her.

\---

She awoke to a tumultuous fog that tore at her like so many thorned vines. Sometime during her unconscious state, her brain had been reduced to little more than an overlarge cotton ball for her head was light and her thoughts fuzzy. She forced her eyes open, trying to rebel against the helpless feeling of painful lethargy that had seeped into every pore of her skin and every muscle and bone in her body.

 ** _Blackness_**. Thick shreds of blackness that whipped through the air like tattered flags in a hurricane. Beyond the inky smears was nothing but _orange_ ; the violent, glaring orange of the sun in its death throes as it was dragged below the horizon. There were things—creatures—wheeling through the darkness with the grace of frightened fish. Were they…maybe bats? Crows? She couldn't say for certain. A shudder worked its way up her spine and extended towards the tips of her fingers and toes as one flapped too close and she discovered they were winged demons come to claw at her.

 _"_ _You've got a devil in you, don't you, girl?"_ A whimper forced its way out from behind her clenched teeth at the memory of those words and she writhed, trying desperately to get away from them. A scream, terrified and pleading, stuck in her throat, choking her.

"Fascinating," a man murmured from outside her field of vision. "Truly fascinating."

She latched onto his words, searching for something ( _anything!_ ) to stabilize her. But his voice was unfamiliar, with a hint of an accent she couldn't place and more ice than anything human should possess. She couldn't fool herself into thinking he was some kind-hearted savior…but she could hope.

_Please get me away from these things. Please help me. Please help me. Please help me._

"You're resisting…aren't you?" he added, voice closer now and almost pleasant in tone.

She yelped as a demon flew too close, nearly catching in her hair.

 _Please, please, please, please, please, pleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleaseplease_ _**please!** _

Her bare toes curled as she dug her heels in against…whatever she was laying against. (Was she still in her box? She didn't know. Perhaps one of the walls had been cut away. Perhaps she'd been moved. Her thoughts refused to progress far enough for her to figure it out.) She clenched and unclenched her fist, trying to use her weight to pull against her bindings. The overly-tight leather creaked and groaned in protest but never gave. She only paused in her efforts when movement from just ahead of her drew her attention. A man's silhouette, normal enough to not be frightening though, backlit against such a burning shade of tangerine, he almost looked as though he were on fire.

He turned toward her, something long and thin and sharp in his right hand. With every step, his body seemed to contort, growing taller and thinner as it curled in on itself, twisting into unnatural positions. Despite his strange deformation, he took up her entire field of vision until the only thing she could see that wasn't utterly black was his eyes: a malicious yellow like some monstrous, vindictive cat.

"Now begin stage two."

Her screams finally worked themselves free.

\---

The moment the heavy weight of his hand hit her shoulder, she knew what was going to happen. She knew better than to scream, if only because he would lie to whatever adults were nearby that they were just playing and then he would hurt her worse next time. Instead she fought: clawing and kicking and biting. It was no use; he was twice her size and built sturdily. He grabbed onto her shirt and started dragging her away from her toys.

"Don't know why they can't see it…shouldn't let you wander around free," he grumbled under his breath. "Gotta chase the demons out somehow."

The closet, as dark as a pit, loomed in front of them.

\---

In hindsight, being followed had been nothing like the movies with the unnaturally pretty heroine immediately knowing someone was after her and every creepy thing happening so suddenly and so obviously that everyone saw what was happening from miles away. In fact, for a long time, she didn't even know something was off. Then she started noticing little things: movement out of the corner of her eye coming from her windows and the faintest tingling on the back of her neck as though she were being watched when she was all alone. _You're being ridiculous!_ she told herself every time. After all, her apartment was on the third floor of the building and it was only natural for someone living alone to occasionally feel unnerved by the silence. But, as time went by and the shapes at the edges of her vision seemed to become full-fledged figures, she couldn't shake the feeling that something was honestly _wrong_.

When she awoke one night to see a silhouette leaning over her—a silhouette that had vanished without a trace when she'd bounded across the room to flip on the lights—she decided it was finally time to confide in her school's councilor. The elderly woman had listened with a smile that was meant to be comforting as she explained her fears and anxiety and everything she thought she was seeing. When she was done the councilor had explained she must be suffering from anxiety brought on by exams, but she could come by the office any time she needed to talk. It wasn't until later that night, flipping through tv channels without seeing them, that it occurred to her that none of her teachers were currently giving exams or doing anything more stressful than normal.

From there everything took a turn for the worse—slowly escalating with the likeness of a pebble speeding up as it fell down a hill. First she had noticed small things out of place: an object at the wrong angle, a door open that ought to have been closed, and objects on the wrong shelves. It wasn't enough to convince her that someone had been in the house, but when she found her front door unlocked after she'd came home one evening it was all the proof she needed. She immediately had both her boyfriend and her landlord check that no one was inside. Both men had come away finding nothing—her landlord had joked that the building was supposed to be haunted and her boyfriend had suggested that, since she'd been so scatter brained lately, it was possible she'd forgotten to lock it that morning—and she'd immediately resolved to spend the next week at her boyfriend's house.

They didn't last three days and then she'd had no choice but to stay with her friends and hunt down some new locks for her apartment. She wanted to make the best out of it, though—to stay positive and for it to all be in her head—and, by the time she'd gotten the nerve to set foot back in her apartment, she'd resumed classes and gotten sleeping pills from her concerned doctor.

The pills didn't work. The nightmares they brought on weren't worth it and so coffee became the prescription of choice.

It was a week later—tired, jittery, and anxious—that she found herself walking along one of the university's side streets on her way home, trying to soothe her nerves with music, when she noticed the man. He was tall and spindly looking and, for a split second, she thought of that stupid Slenderman craze that had been all over the internet a few years back. It did nothing to make her feel better and she started walking faster. By the time she noticed he was following her, she'd also noticed he was far too close for comfort. Nearly panicking, she'd just had the random thought of how the song on her iPod was an extremely crappy one to die to when everything went black.

\---

Fluffy and foggy, that was how her mind felt. Her muscles were twitchy and everything ached. She wasn't sure if she still existed or not. Her body was on Earth but everything else…wasn't at home. Every once in a while she wondered if she were dead before letting the unending orange glow take her away again.

_So tired…should stop soon…._

\---

She became aware that something was different when she realized she could move her fingers of her own free will—she couldn't remember the last time she'd done that without it being brought on by sheer terror. Fascinated, she tried again, reveling at the feel of her muscles flexing and tensing. She paused, suddenly aware that it was possible that she was not alone. She listened for any sound— _anything!_ —but, after several tense moments, could hear nothing but her pounding heart and the distant whirr of an industrial-grade AC unit. She could feel thick bands of something crossing her chest, waist, and ankles. She tried to kick out, to shake off the bindings on her legs, but her muscles were weak and all but useless. It felt like ants were crawling under her skin and her earlier lethargy was slowly returning. Maybe, she thought, she could close her eyes for a moment…

…when she next opened them, she was certain time had passed, but had no knowledge of exactly how much. The world was still heavily smudged with black and orange, but no longer so much so that she couldn't see her surroundings and through the miasma she thought she saw some sort of laboratory. Her body still ached and she felt like she had just barely recovered from the worst flu of her life, but her fear, the fear that had nearly consumed her, was oddly muted—as though there was a glass pane between her and it; she knew it was there, lurking, but it couldn't reach her.

In fact, every feeling within her seemed muted and, with an almost reckless abandon, she twisted her arms until she could reach the buckle to the binding around her chest. It fell away with a soft clank and she tried not to think too hard on the relief seeping into her veins as she moved to undo the strap at her waist. She choked on a sob as she tried to pull herself off of the table and, instead, ended up tripping over the strap at her ankles and falling face first to the ground. She stayed frozen on the floor for several long moments, trying to listen for any approaching footsteps or sounds of alarm, but she heard nothing more than the faint shrieks of some of the winged beasts still flapping overhead.

Stumbling to her feet, she had to lean against a nearby table as her legs nearly gave out. Through her mental fog, she could make out the shapes of vials and beakers laid out neatly on the table. Rage at all that had been done to her gave strength to her weakened limbs and she shoved the table over. She ran, stumbling toward the cavernous room's exit as the sound of shattering glass reached her ears. She wasn't entirely certain when she'd reached the hall where she was. Reality kept shifting. One moment she was in a rundown warehouse and, the very next, the walls and floor were being ripped away, piece by piece, to be swallowed up by a miasmic abyss. The shadows refused to remain in place, constantly dancing and changing shape before her eyes. She'd never seen so many bugs in her life.

She was lost, trapped in a maze in a world she wasn't certain existed. All she could say was that she had to keep moving…she didn't know what would happen to her if she stopped; she felt like she could disintegrate with a thought. _Need to get out!_

A shriek of pure anger cut through her thoughts. Behind her, a harsh voice shouted but she couldn't make out the words. There was too much fog. Something heavy collided with her, forcing her to fall against a wall and she held on to whatever it was that had struck her in an effort to not hit the ground—she wasn't certain she'd be able to get up again if she did. She turned against her assailant and found herself face to face with yellow eyes and rotting burlap. Her screams caught in her throat, unable to be vocalized, and she clawed at him, wanting nothing more than to tear out the devil's eyes.

The sound of glass breaking far above her reached her ears just as she felt several sharp stings pierce her arm. She could hear a commotion, but the there/not there floor was rushing up to meet her. Once again, her entire world was orange.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed it.  
> As stated, if you wish, I’d be happy to write the second chapter (Jon’s rebuttal, if you will) and we can all decide from there whether or not you’d like a full-fledged story to come from this. If you would like a second chapter, just…leave a comment stating so. Cheers!


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